


Behind the Curtain

by entanglednow



Series: Lucifer Bound [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bonding, M/M, Sex Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-29
Updated: 2010-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Castiel gets a good look at Lucifer, and Dean has a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind the Curtain

Lucifer is still outside.

Castiel would know as much even blind and deaf. Even with a great deal of his power gone he can still see things that aren't supposed to be seen. Lucifer is a thing that walls and doors are simply not strong enough to mask. Which could become a problem for them, if he remains with them for any length of time.

Currently, there is no one else here, no one but Castiel who can see the shape of him, three feet to the left of the door.

Though that is far from a comforting thought.

Dean and Sam are still debating the dilemma of his continued presence among them. A great deal of their conversation is complicated by guilt and anger. Though it has yet to spiral into anything like what fuelled their separation after Ruby's death. Castiel thinks they are learning how to better deal with their anger towards each other.

He moves from the carpeted floor of the room to the damp gravel outside with half a thought.

The sun is high but Lucifer has found a shaded corner from where to watch the world. Though what he watches, or why, is a mystery. He leaves no stray emotion on display that Castiel could name. But, his face is not entirely blank. There's a familiarity there that Castiel doesn't entirely understand. An acceptance of his borrowed flesh that even Castiel, ever more confined within his own, couldn't hope to emulate. Lucifer is still very much...a thing of power. Castiel can feel him now, and he knows that should the devil wish to crush him, it would take little more than a thought.

Though he's not the glory that he could be. He's folded within a vessel and thus constrained by certain rules, by certain laws. Half hidden and half caught in human shape. If Castiel was asked to describe it to Dean he thinks perhaps he would compare it to being forced to have a conversation underwater and through glass, confined, muffled and distracting. Smeared and unclear.

Yet Castiel finds he's oddly grateful for the distance. For the weight of both years and flesh between them.

"You wish to see what was done to me then," Lucifer says quietly, without looking at him.

Castiel moves closer, head tilted up. He goes to Lucifer not to demand, or to plead. He will not be drawn into games.

"I would like to see, yes." He's not sure what he expects. But Lucifer seems to enjoy defying his expectations. Because, he turns and takes a step towards him, as if quietly encouraging Castiel's curiosity. Even chained as he is to the younger Winchester, Castiel is uncertain whether touching him is a wise idea. He does not wish to _connect_ with Lucifer. Yet, there is no better way of investigating the full extent of the binding. Of seeing it clearly. Of knowing it and understanding it.

"Sam has forbidden me from harming you," Lucifer reminds him.

"I have learned to be cautious when things tell me they mean me no harm," Castiel tells him. Other voices, less powerful and more familiar had taught him that lesson. But he lifts a hand, raises it, and carefully lays his fingers against Lucifer's skin.

Even in a body not meant for him, not perfect for him, his power is immense. He is a vast, shifting maelstrom of something both angel and not. It's a familiar taste but it's been honed to the sharpest edge and left to freeze that way. To make its own shapes without the touch of other angels.

Castiel does little but skirt the edges of it. Unwilling to connect, to combine. But he sees what he was looking for easily enough.

The magic used to bind Lucifer is neither delicate nor precise. It's aggressive and hastily done, spells layered together that were never meant to be used together. Unnecessary and discordant repetitions tangled up with each other. Where there should be curving lines and threads of magic there are instead sharp edged curves and disorder. Dark lines and uneven stitches of colour and sound in the flared bright red of pain.

Lucifer is not simply bound he is strung through with hooks; jammed so deeply into him that he leaks gold.

And he is fighting it.

He is fighting it furiously.

Castiel is forced still by the chaotic horror of it.

He cannot stray deeper. Diminished as he is, Lucifer would overwhelm him completely. Though Castiel is not sure he wants to see more clearly how far the spell goes. Several of his questions are answered though, and some of them are less reassuring answers than he was hoping for.

Lucifer stretches in his direction. It could be unintentional, a reaction to the embers of his own grace. But Castiel suspects not. There is a brief, bright touch, embers against an inferno - Castiel's whole being rings in one shivering echo of sound and light. Grace flaring for just a second out of the quietness. At once alive and vibrant. He's not prepared for it, for the warmth of it. It steals all thought from him. He jerks away, hand falling from the strangeness of Lucifer's skin.

Lucifer watches him quietly for a time and says nothing.

The flare of power eventually slows to a quiet thrum, a glow in the dark again.

"You are not what you were, Castiel." The words are soft, they're also edged with something that feels like genuine concern.

"I'm sorry," Castiel finds himself saying, instead of what he'd intended to. Because there is nothing else to say now he has seen, now he understands what was done. He's surprised he cannot see it without touching. Surprised that Lucifer isn't crawling with lines of agony. But he knows why he fights so hard against it. There is nothing to do against that but fight. Like teeth punched in to the bone. You struggle against the certainty that you will be eaten.

"You have made more sacrifices than most," Lucifer says.

Castiel wants to protest that he neither needs nor wants Lucifer's sympathy.

"A low burning fire can be convinced to flare again," Lucifer adds calmly. His eyes never leave Castiel's face and that is a strange sort of focus. A strange directness that flesh gives.

Castiel believes he knows what Lucifer is suggesting. But he has already accepted the things he cannot change. He has already become accustomed to the lights going dark.

"You will understand why I must still consider you untrustworthy," he says.

"And yet you can see for yourself. I am bound and tethered and fixed in space."

The reminder is harsh now that Castiel understands the true extent of it.

"But not muzzled," he offers, then wonders if perhaps he has strayed across a line when Lucifer is silent for a stretch too long.

A human would have moved, sighed, fidgeted, boots shifting on the gravel, any number of strange meaningless human gestures. But from Lucifer there is just stillness.

"No, indeed, not muzzled. Not unless Sam wishes it."

"Some people would find this an acceptable punishment considering what you had planned for him." Castiel says quietly. But the words are thick in his mouth. Because perhaps there is nothing for which this is an acceptable punishment.

"What I still have planned for him," Lucifer says smoothly. Like he believes he will eventually fight his way free.

Castiel is almost certain now that such a thing is currently impossible. Though he suspects Lucifer will tear himself apart trying.

"Sam does not deserve what you have planned for him," he says instead.

"I have never been cruel to Sam." Lucifer says. His expression is the calm flatness of genuine honesty.

"Then you have a misguided definition of cruelty," Castiel says quietly.

"Can you say the same, Castiel? Can you say that you've never hurt him? That you've never intended to hurt him."

Castiel frowns.

"That is -"

"Not the same?" Lucifer finishes for him and seems overly fond of how very human that sounds hung between them. "Show me one lie I have told him. One betrayal I have made, or promise I have broken."

Castiel shakes his head, refusing to play this game with him.

"We both know that the truth can be sharper than lies."

"I have no intention of harming him. But he is mine, he has _always_ been mine."

Castiel raises an eyebrow. He offers an expression of curiosity, and protest. He thinks, perhaps, of reminding Lucifer that it appears the opposite is now true. Lucifer looks suddenly amused and it takes Castiel a long second to realise how they are communicating. He forces himself still, forces his face back to blankness. Though he knows Lucifer has already taken whatever he wanted from their conversation.

"It's a battle that's been coming for a long time," Lucifer says. His voice is a low trail of quiet words that seem almost as if they're trying to reassure him. "It may be delayed, it may be postponed. The where and the how may change. But it will happen. You know enough to know that."

Castiel is silent. But he thinks his face - this face - he thinks it has become far too used to doubt.

Lucifer's own expression shifts into something softer, something almost sympathetic.

He should not be so adept at compassion.

"Oh Castiel, they are full of fire and hope, but that doesn't make them _right._ "

  
~~~~~

  
"He can't do anything," Sam insists, _again._

"No," Dean says flatly.

"Dean -"

"No, no fallen angels in the car. It's one of my rules."

"Since when?"

"Since an hour ago when the possibility of it came up," Dean snaps. In what Sam is fairly sure is an accusation disguised as protectiveness. He's still pacing, distracted every few minutes from packing the last of their stuff away by his own irritated fury. It says a lot that he seems to be trying to burn it off rather than heaping it all on Sam.

But Sam's finding it hard to be grateful and annoyed at the same time.

"Cas says he has to stay around me."

Dean shakes his head.

"I don't care what Cas says. Lucifer can find his own transportation."

Sam honestly thought this was a conversation they'd had already, that they'd already agreed on this. Unless Dean actually plans to kick him out of the car as well. Which is _bullshit._

"And how is that going to work exactly?" Sam says. "We don't know how close he has to be before something happens."

"Like what? His head explodes? Because I'm damned if I can see a wrong there." Dean looks perfectly happy about it. He makes sure Sam sees exactly how happy he is.

God, if only their problems were that easy to solve.

"I'm fairly sure Castiel said something about some sort of psychic shockwaves that could pose a threat to anyone unlucky enough to be around. But I might have been mistaken since you were _shouting_ over most of it."

"Sounded like bullshit to me," Dean says flatly.

Sam lifts his hands.

"What, you think Castiel just made up some stuff?"

Dean does look annoyed then.

"No, I don't think Cas just made some stuff. Maybe you weren't listening, hell maybe Lucifer's playing with us, did you ever think of that?"

"Oh, so you want to test it out, see if anyone drops dead?"

"I didn't say that." Dean grits his teeth, obviously stopping himself from saying anything else. He makes an angry noise instead.

Sam forces himself to exhale. Because he knows they're getting close to the edge. Knows they're feeding on each other. Dean focuses all his terrible anger on the zip of his bag for a few minutes and Sam lets him. It gives him time to rein his own frustration in and swallow it.

"Look," Sam says, in a much quieter tone of voice. "We might be able to test it, a little bit. Some place where there's no people. But we're going to need to get there first and then we're going to need to find more information about this."

Dean nods, not exactly calm but Sam gets the feeling he's having a damn good stab at it.

"And where exactly are we going to get that?"

"Bobby could -"

"You want to show up at Bobby's with the devil?" Dean asks, like he knows damn well what Bobby's opinion on that would be. Like he knows what Bobby's reaction would be.

Sam winces. "We could call him first?"

"Because when you're bringing the ruler of hell you really should call ahead." Dean's voice is made entirely of sarcasm and irritation now. Which is probably better than anger. Sam will take sarcasm over anger any day.

"Ok, so how about if you went to Bobby's." Sam's open to suggestion here.

"And you'll what? Sit here with your new best friend with no one watching your back. That's a fantastic idea, Sam."

Sam sighs. "We can't just sit around and wait for this to go away like it's some sort of strange rash."

"Please tell me you don't have a strange rash as well?" Dean looks like he doesn’t know whether he's joking or not.

Sam's going to pretend he's joking because that's a really good way to stay sane at the moment.

"Not funny," he bites out. "Look, I get that I deserve the mocking and the lectures and the anger. But I'm trying to _fix_ this."

He gestures at the computer to prove it. To prove he's been trying to work out how to break this. Rather than what he'd quite like to be doing, which is swinging wildly between denial and a vague sense of horror. Because he has been trying to find a way to fix this. He's been dragging up any information he can find on binding rituals and sex magic. Pretty much anything that puts anyone in someone else's power. But Bobby and his books would be pretty handy right about now.

Dean rubs a hand over his mouth.

"Ok, plan A, you tell Lucifer to go and kill an Archangel and bring back its sword. We gank the son of a bitch and everyone goes home happy."

Sam blinks.

"That's...actually a pretty good plan." He's not sure why he sounds so surprised. But Dean doesn't take the opportunity to be offended by Sam's opinion of his intelligence. Instead he just nods in an 'I have my moments' sort of way.

"I'm putting my vote in for doing it right now, any objection?"

Sam exhales, and shuts his laptop. "No, no objections, lets do it."

Dean's pulling his coat off the back of the chair behind Sam when Castiel angel's his way into the room. He's just suddenly _there_ , taking up space and trailing cold air. Sam really hopes he's not also trailing an air of impending doom. Because he's had about as much of that as he can handle already.

"You've decided upon a course of action?" Castiel asks, once they're both looking at him.

"Yeah," Dean says. "We're gonna tell Lucifer to go out and get us a devil killing sword and then we're going to run him through with it. Maybe chop off his head, anything grisly and final is good with me."

Sam is definitely a fan of that handy summing up of their plans for the day.

But Castiel frowns, sharp and intent, then looks between them. Like he's working out how to tell them something they won't like. There's a hard noise of protest already making its way up Dean's throat. He pauses half-way into his coat.

"Oh no, no, Cas. I know that face. You're about to tell me something I'm not going to like, again aren't you? _God damn it._ "

Sam can tell by the look on Castiel's face that he is indeed going to tell them something they won't like. He flattens his hand on the warmth of the computer and thinks about bracing himself.

"Cas, please don't tell me something I'm not going to like," Dean adds when the angel doesn’t actually offer anything. Like he thinks maybe he can will the news to be good with newfound Winchester powers. Sam's pretty sure the only power they have is to make things worse.

Castiel presses his mouth shut and looks horribly pained.

Yeah, definitely worse.

Dean rubs at his eye with the edge of his palm and sighs loudly.

"Fuck it, go on," he says without looking up.

Castiel looks at Sam, then back at Dean.

"Their connection is more complicated than I realised. Sam not only has Lucifer's obedience he also has...access to Lucifer's power through him, though he is, as far as I can tell, incapable of perceiving it, or using it."

"So, what the hell does that mean?" Dean demands.

"It means there is an open connection between them, and one of them is vastly more powerful than the other. I suspect Lucifer is compensating for that."

Dean's body language is the stiff expectation of something nasty. Though Sam honestly wonders why he has to brace himself any more. When he always expects the worst anyway. The phrase 'speak of the devil' is not supposed to be so literal.

"So, if we kill the devil -"

"I do not believe Sam would survive it," Castiel tells them both.

Dean nods at Castiel like he's seriously considering refusing to believe him, then he turns around and drops himself heavily on the bed, coat bunched up behind him where he's still only half wearing it.

Sam's pretty sure that the phrase 'fuck my life' was made for moments just like this.

Castiel's expression is trying very hard to be sympathetic. It still looks a little confused, but Sam thinks he'll probably be good at it one day. God knows he gets enough practice with them.

"Oh, this just keeps getting better doesn't it," Dean says eventually. He presses his hands together loosely and then tightly, gives a hard stiff exhale that sounds like a laugh.

Sam knows that anything he says is just going to make this worse, so he remains stiffly quiet.

"Ok," Dean says slowly. "So plan A's a bust. Not a problem, thinking up ways to kill things is what we do, right? We just have to find out how to take you two apart first.”

Sam pulls a face because did Dean really need to phrase it exactly like that?

Castiel’s looking at Dean like he loves and admires his shiny optimism but doesn’t think it’s going to end well. The look he throws Sam is all sympathy mixed up with that mysterious angel foreboding.

Yeah, fuck his life.

  



End file.
